Trinity Institute returns to Cathedral

2015 Conference looks at creating common good

Christ Church Cathedral will serve as a partner site for the renowned Trinity Institute annual conference January 22-24. Now in its 44th year, the Trinity Institute presents emerging and inclusive theological perspectives and engages participants in inquiry, dialogue, and reflection. Trinity Institute takes place at Trinity Episcopal Church on Wall Street in New York City and is streamed at partner sites throughout the world. The 2015 conference, Creating the Common Good: A Practical Conference for Economic Equality, will tackle the difficult issue of economic inequality.

Economic inequality in the United States is a pervasive, overwhelming issue, as the gap between the haves and have-nots grows. Such inequality represents a condition decried by the prophets, forcefully addressed by Jesus, and singled out by a number of contemporary voices in economics and public policy as a serious but correctable obstacle to human thriving.

Many worry that they are complicit in a system that perpetuates as economic inequality and see their complicity as going against deeply held Christian values about social justice. Many avoid the topic because taking a stand against economic inequality is difficult, and they don’t know what they can do – as individuals and as the Church – to effect change in a broken system.

The theological perspectives, along with the real-world experience of the conference’s speakers in making change happen, will give practical tools that can be used to make a positive economic impact. Participants will then have an opportunity at each conference site to tell their own stories of success and challenge in small group discussions.

The speakers will include: The Most Rev. Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury; Dr. Cornel West, author of The Rich and The Rest of Us; Dr. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed and This Land is Their Land; Dr. Juliet Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure and The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need; Robert Reich, J.D., former U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton; and the Rt. Rev. Julio Murray, Bishop of Panama.